• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.

    In the People’s Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn’t steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing’s faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized:

    Deng’s plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.

    China’s rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a “love/hate” relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.

    Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC’s gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.

    Put another way:

    The English language is violence, I hotwired it

    I got a hold of the master’s tools and got dialed in

    I’m downwind with the drop

    I’m Deng Xiaoping, smoking oil in the wok

    -billy woods

    For further reading:

    1. Qiao Collective’s Introductory Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Study Guide

    2. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics ProleWiki page

    3. Socialist Market Economy ProleWiki Page

    4. People’s Republic of China ProleWiki Page

    5. My “Read Theory, Darn It!” Introductory Marxist-Leninist Reading Guide

    6. Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism by Domenico Losurdo

    7. China Has Billionaires by Roderic Day

    8. The Long Game and its Contradictions

    9. Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

    10. Super-Imperialism: The Origins and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance by Michael Hudson

    11. Marxism is a Science by Deng Xiaoping

    12. Regarding the Construction of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics by Xi Jinping